Nice bit of free-range pork had to time it to fit it around the bacon, thank goodness for digital calipers (exacting fool that I am) ...sorted, stored, smoked & chewed over.. in the literal sense.

Too much smoke at 40+ hours for the nipper, though I was really getting a never tasted before oak buzz from it, very pronounced flavour, sadly my slicer died a death so knifework was the order of the day.Delicious, some more sitting aging in the fridge currently, no shots (you know what a gammon looks like)

Tis making me look further out to sample some rarer breeds, keen to try the "black's" breed (a cross admittedly) but having failed that i'm after some redhills pork (Duroc cross Land-race pigs) to compare bacon with "stock" commercial, & budget supermarket (uk bred) fare.

The Butcher told me that whilst much of their commercial bacon meat is spanish they do order in a lot of the redhill pork for a very popular "heaving" americanised eaterie for bikers up the road, ..which apparantly is packed with around 600 bikers over week-ends, ...so much for cheap fare of greasy spoons!

Having aged the last few batches my impressions were that my maple streaky (delicious) simply needed more maple adding, more slosh & less caution, the el cheapo was my daughters favourite, with the absence of fat, ..she is proving herself a back bacon fan, ...that was also the vanilla based bacon.

Will be doing another gammon & trying to lower the salt, as I think that is where the salt & the smoke clashed a little too much.

Oak 60% / Beech 40% ratio

Happy with my first attempt, better than a Waitrose gammon by a long shot, but what do I know!?